


Dunedin

by coverofnight



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Freakytits - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-01-13 14:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coverofnight/pseuds/coverofnight
Summary: Based on the following prompt from Stella_STARgazer: Vera and Joan run into each other while out and about on the weekend. You pick the place and how it turns out.I didn't follow the prompt exactly as it's laid out there, but hopefully what's written here works. :)





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the following prompt from Stella_STARgazer: Vera and Joan run into each other while out and about on the weekend. You pick the place and how it turns out.
> 
> I didn't follow the prompt exactly as it's laid out there, but hopefully what's written here works. :)

I first spot her near the Hotel St. Clair, just a short walk from where I live on Second Beach Road. Strangely, the sight of her is as expected: she still furrows her brow and purses her lips in the world-weary way she did when I once knew her. And the wrinkles splayed across her forehead have deepened with time, though they aren’t unpleasant to look at; at least not as unpleasant as my own. The only unexpected thing is the boy, whose blue-green eyes mirror his mother's and menacing eyebrows are an exact match for the man I assume is his father. 

In the midst of shielding her eyes from the late afternoon sun, Vera doesn’t see me. And I hope, for a moment, that she never does. But the boy, he sees me. Something in his soul recognizes me, it seems. Or perhaps, my curious yet scrutinizing glare unsettles him in the same way it sometimes did Jake. And as they stand on the corner of Beach Street and The Esplanade, the boy, who’s no more than nine, yanks Vera’s hand and motions to call her attention to me.

Quickly, I turn. Quickly, I free my hair from its graying tail. Quickly, I pray to a God I’ve never believed in.

_Quickly, quickly, quickly._

The pace with which I move in this moment is taxing on the spirit. All these years, all these miles, all these tragedies have passed me by. Or rather, I have learned to outrun them. But I am tired of running and here, in New Zealand, I have learned to stroll. To relax. To breathe. Yet, I find in this moment that I’m actually holding my breath and waiting for that clarion voice to call across the way to me and say, “Joan?”

The call never comes, so I scurry down an alternate route home before anyone, not even Vera who knows me better than most, can recognize me. Once there, I frantically secure the door, lower the blinds, and pray once again to that great entity in the sky that I can hold on to this life just a little bit longer. For the first time in ten years, I'm truly frightened and the remainder of my afternoon is spent waiting for the authorities to handcuff and shut me away. By night, I close my eyes and let my fears carry me into a twilight sleep.  

 

* * *

 

By morning’s light, I am calm. The blue of the sky and the rhythmic sounds of the ocean just across the way seem to seep into my home, into my chest. The waters swirl round and round inside me, washing away all the gunk I’ve let burrow in the depths of my heart these last few decades. Water cleanses and soothes the place I’ve held for Vera and a tingle near my heart prompts me to rest a hand between my breasts. There she is and has always been. Always there, always waiting.

In the physical realm, she awaits me, too. Standing watch at my apartment’s front window, I catch a glimpse of her and the boy on the beach. The boy splashes about at the edge of the water, making his mother clutch her belly in laughter. She looks beautiful like that — happy and free. I cherish the sight but decide against disturbing it.

The next morning, the same scene unfolds, only this time a woman steps forward and snakes an arm around Vera’s waist. They cling to one another in a way that I've only dreamt of doing with someone dearer to me than the rare lover I’ve permitted myself these last years. So, I stand there at the window staring at a life I might’ve lived had Vera and I not parted ways. Even so, I am not bitter and for the first time in a long time, I’m thankful for the calm that’s settled within me.

 

* * *

 

The fateful encounter doesn’t occur until the following day when I feel safe enough to venture from my home to the local cafe. It’s my usual morning haunt; its sights and sounds and smells no longer hold any surprise for me. Not like they did when I first arrived. But on this morning, with Vera’s tiny figure standing idle by the cash register, everything seems uniquely foreign and unsettling. My walking pace slows to a complete stop as I take in the sight of my former deputy and fight to stay grounded in the present.

Luckily, the man behind the counter, Sam, recognizes me, calls me by my false name — Lena — and waves me over to him. The familiar sound of his voice tells me for certain exactly where and in which era I truly am. Wentworth is a distant memory; my unquenchable thirst for power is, too. Again, I feel the calm waters flow within me, especially since the boom in Sam’s voice isn’t enough to make Vera, who’s alone today, turn from her stance in front of him and notice that anything’s amiss. It’s only when I, now somehow brave enough to do it, stand near her and greet Sam that she knows me.  
  
“Morning, Sam. My usual, please,” I say. And by then Vera is turning to face me and simultaneously clutching a shaky hand to her chest.

“Hello, Vera,” I say. 

A smirk creeps across my lips as I remember some of the old times, but it fades rather rapidly when I remember that last time — the way her eyes hated and pitied me all in the same moment. She looks at me now, scared and uncertain, and in her eyes, I register the one question I know she needs me to answer. So, I purposefully latch my scarred fingers around my collar and pull it down just enough for her to notice the faint mark across my neck. The injuries are a two-for-one deal I try my best to forget. But for Vera, whose eyes go wide with recognition when she sees them, they’re markers of the horror I endured and the legacy I left for her to manage.

“It _is_ you,” she says as a wave of relief washes over her face. “Joan.” Vera’s small voice croaks out my name and, in it, I hear the faint trappings of emotion far deeper than she would ever admit. “It’s impossible,” she whispers.

I merely shake my head before glancing at Sam for reassurance that this is all real.

“You taking a table today, Lena?” he asks me as he rounds the counter and hands a tray of coffee and pastry to Vera.

Just then, I look to Vera who, still uncertain, nods an affirmative at us both. She turns swiftly on her heel and leads the way in choosing a corner table with a window view.


	2. Two

Vera’s eyes, wide and worried, are steady on me as I sit across her. And in them, I can sense a vulnerability that she hadn’t dared convey when Sam was an arm’s length away. Now she shows me because she knows I and I alone understand what it means, what events from years past to which that doe-eyed look refers. She fears me still, but not in the way she did when we were both in uniform. She fears, perhaps, what I might confess. What grotesque display she might see in spite of the humanity she has almost always shown me. She doesn’t know that Dunedin has brought me back, insomuch as is possible for someone like me. I can smile now and reflect and share my life even if only in the smallest of ways.

Perhaps it’s because I have healed. Or maybe it’s just that I have made peace, though I’m not quite sure yet what that means. What I do know is that seeing Vera here before me is moving in the same way it was when, under the low light of my dining room, I reached a hand across a table and begged for understanding.

It seems like light years ago, but in the same instant — in this instant — it feels like just yesterday. My momentary nostalgia prompts me to reach a hand across the table to Vera. When she doesn’t return the gesture, I retract my hand and bury it beneath the table.

“Are you frightened?” I ask. She merely shakes her head, but the tremble of her chin lets me know for sure what I already suspect. “I won’t hurt you. I never wanted to,” I confess. It softens her.

“What’s going on Joan? How did you…” She can’t bring herself to finish what she wants to say.

“Escape the box?” I raise my eyebrows, a sardonic smirk pushing its way past my lips.

Vera averts my gaze. Shame reddens her face.  
  
“Was it you, then?” I nod, prompting her, “did you plan it?”

She shakes her head no.

“But you knew.”

Her lips tighten, the creases just above her Cupid’s bow more pronounced than I remember. She gives another shake of the head.

“It was Jake, wasn’t it?”

Vera shifts in her seat, takes a sip of her coffee. In this moment she seems smaller than ever. She’s inside herself now, fighting with every ounce of dignity she has to manage the challenge set before her.

“I just want to understand,” I say, yielding. “I mean no harm, Vera.”

After a minute’s silence and struggle, she opens her mouth. “It was Will. And Jake. And eventually me. I didn’t know until after it was all said and done but believe me Joan, I would have done anything in my power to stop it.”

As her words reach my ears, I recall those first moments of terror in the box. I can still hear the dirt thudding against the top of it. The taste and smell and feel of it are still tangible for me. Trauma does such things  — makes you feel as if it could happen again at any moment; as if merely recalling a distant memory would immediately conjure the horrors that made the circumstances so utterly unbearable in the first place. I take a deep breath, attempting to wash away the remnants of that night’s dirty deed from my mind’s eye, I remember the very last thought that took over me before nearly succumbing to an eternal sleep.  It was of Vera; her blue eyes looking up with love and reverence and all the things that went unspoken between us. That alone gave me the courage to barrel through that lucky crack in the box just above my head.

“I know. Well, I figured as much,” I finally say to her. Her face reads as guilty as her conscience must be and again I reach my hand out to her. She takes it this time.

“I’m sorry, Joan. There’s absolutely nothing I can say or do to make it up to you,” she says, squeezing my hand in hers.

Just then, Sam delivers my coffee and pastry to the table. “Your usual, Lena.”

I smile graciously at him. “Thanks so much, Sam.”

“You ladies enjoy,” he says before departing.

I sip the coffee slowly, taking in its taste and aroma. “There’s little around here like this particular cup of coffee. A taste of heaven.”

Vera only smiles and watches me. “You seem so different than what I remember,” she says wistfully.

“I am different. I never want to be what I was, what I became. What put me in that box.”

“It was Will who put you in that box.”

“You really think so? You don’t think all the things I’ve done landed me there? I remember when I escaped and breathed fresh air again for the first time, I had this...awakening. This vision of being free. So much of what drives me is anger. Even now, anger sits ready and waiting right here,” I explain, holding a hand to my heart. “And for a long time before, I wanted revenge and justice and validation. But I went about it the wrong way. I had to lose myself to come back. I have a feeling you did, too.”

Vera nods and shifts her gaze from me. “My boy brought me back.”

Aha. There it is. The real truth. I smile, nod, listen.

“I never wanted to be a mother, but you put Jake in my path and things happened and now he’s here and…” Vera’s voice trails in the way that happens to all mothers when speaking of their offspring. It’s the kind  of love I can never, will never understand; a love that was never granted to me. It looks good on Vera.

I smile, both at Vera’s marked change and my own cleverness at having had a hand in it. “Hm, and what did you call him, this boy of yours?”

Vera hesitates a moment and contemplates her next response. She takes a deep breath, then looks me dead on. “Riley, after your Jianna.”

I stifle a cry. It gets stuck in my throat and I’m unable to speak for some moments. Vera speaks for me.

“I thought...I thought you both should be remembered in some way.” Vera shrugs as if the sentiment is stupid.

“I think Jianna would have loved that.”

“And you?”

I only nod and shift in my seat, feeling uncomfortable sitting on the one question I’ve wanted to ask for the better part of a decade. Sensing it, Vera nods and silently prompts me to say what’s on my mind. I lick my lips and open my mouth to form the only question that means anything to me.  

“Do you remember that fight we had? When I...slapped you? Do you know what that was about?”

“You had gone mad. You had been unraveling for some time. I thought it was just another outburst. Another blame game, of sorts,” Vera says. “I only learned later what you had meant, what that photo of Jianna truly signified.”

“So, it wasn’t you who plastered them all over my office?”

“Huh-uh. It was Fletch and Smith. I was the pawn.”

Beneath Vera’s soft hand, I involuntarily clench my fist. The mere thought of those bumbling idiots using Vera against me is almost too much to keep my long-buried fury at bay. But Vera’s thumb caresses the top of my hand and I ease up. My fist and teeth and mind and heart unclench. I look at Vera, whose eyes are wide with sympathy and say quite simply, “I’m glad it wasn’t you.”


End file.
